Judge Thomas Hart said he found the arguments of the state attorney general's office persuasive.

Hart ruled that Kinkel's nearly 112-year sentence for killing his parents and two Thurston High School students and wounding 25 others at his high school in May 1998 "does not violate the Eighth Amendment."

He said earlier case law from both the U.S. Supreme Court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals didn't necessarily apply to Kinkel's case. The courts had found that certain mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles were unconstitutional.

"None of them are really on point," Hart said after brief oral arguments. "The underlying facts are distinguishable in each of these cases."

The state convinced the judge that the circumstances in Kinkel's case were far different.

Assistant Attorneys General Laura Cadiz and Samuel Kubernick pointed out that Kinkel received a long sentence -- not a mandatory life sentence -- from a Lane County judge who exercised his discretion and considered Kinkel's age.

Kinkel was 15 when he gunned down his parents in their Springfield home on May 20, 1998, and then killed two students and wounded 25 others at Thurston High School the next morning.

Before trial, Kinkel abandoned an insanity defense and accepted a plea deal to serve 25 years for shooting his parents, William Kinkel, 59, and Faith Kinkel, 57, and two Thurston High School students Mikael Nickolauson, 17, and Ben Walker, 16.

But the deal allowed a Lane County judge to tack on 40 months for each of the 26 attempted murder counts Kinkel faced for wounding the other students and lunging at an officer with a knife once in custody. The judge sentenced him in November 1999 to 111 years and eight months without the possibility of parole.

Although Kinkel, who turned 31 on Aug. 30, was thought to have exhausted his appeals in state court, his attorney had filed a new petition in March citing the U.S. Supreme Court opinion Miller v. Alabama from June 2012.

The high court ruled 5-4 that the mandatory true life sentences for two 14-year-olds -- who were tried as adults and convicted of murder -- violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Minors under 18 still could be sentenced to life without parole, the court ruled, but only if the sentencing judge makes a finding that the penalty is appropriate, weighing the defendant's character and details of the crime.

Citing the Miller case, Kinkel's lawyer Andy Simrin argued this spring that Kinkel's sentence amounts to life in prison without parole and that the sentencing judge failed to consider his age at the time.

Simrin also argued Thursday that the U.S. Supreme Court case Graham v. Florida -- which held that the Eighth Amendment prohibited a life sentence without parole for juveniles convicted of a non-homicide crime -- should apply to Kinkel.

Simrin said the 87-year consecutive sentence he received for the 26 attempted murder counts ensured Kinkel would be in prison until he was 102.

But the state's Kubernick countered that the ruling didn't apply to a case in which a juvenile was convicted of multiple offenses with multiple victims.

He said he doesn't think the added time for the attempted murder counts "shocks
anyone's conscience."

He also noted that Kinkel's sentence has stood up as constitutional to all earlier court challenges.

"It's still lawful now, frankly," Kubernick said.

The judge agreed. He said he was unwilling to consider Kinkel's sentence for his attempted murder charges separate from the four murder convictions.

"I still have four bodies," Hart said. "I'm not going to be the person who's going to carve those facts out."

Simrin said he was disappointed in the ruling and hoped to meet with Kinkel later Thursday to brief him about the outcome. Kinkel didn't attend the hearing.

Simrin said he'll consult with Kinkel to determine whether to appeal Hart's decision to the state's Court of Appeals.

Rod Berg, executive director of Mid-Valley Youth for Christ's Juvenile Justice Ministries, attended Thursday's hearing and said afterward he's been visiting with Kinkel for 16 years and spent Kinkel's birthday with him last month.

"He's doing the best he can," Berg said.

He was
with Kinkel when he arrived at the Oregon Youth Authority's MacLaren Youth
Correctional Facility and has visited with him recently at the Oregon
State Correctional Institution.